It sure didn't sound like that to me, oh well. But I agree, I never thought that either, that's why it's a shame it always comes back to that with all the other possibilities to be explored.
Annie, Greg has never posted anywhere that he believes AA was Anastasia - all he has ever said was that he thinks there are puzzling unanswered questions here. That's true, whatever your perspective on the matter. On this board alone, he has said that he has no wishes either way, that it's not a question of disbelieving the DNA tests, and so forth. Additionally, he doesn't like posting on this topic, and when six months ago I first alerted him that this board had appeared, he told me that if he joined he had no intention of posting on this topic, for several reasons. Yet he does so, because people have questions and he is a kind and generous person who gives time to answer points that he CAN answer when they are topics he has researched - and because he thrives on intellectual discussion. The risk in this is that others (I don't mean you) post insulting comments suggesting that "Fate of the Romanovs" is just a prequel to some book about AA (how offensive, considering the work that went into it! - and considering how important and ground-breaking a book it is - whereas the principle ground-breaking research on AA was done twenty years ago by Peter Kurth). This sort of reaction is completely unhelpful, and I don't think it's helpful either for you to be posting comments suggesting that you think people (e.g. Greg and Penny) are artificially "trying to keep the issue alive" for the sake of future books. That isn't fair and it isn't true - this threda has been up on the board for six whole months, and FA of all people started it in recognition of the fact that people want to talk about it. I apologize if I jumped down your throat - this isn't about your opinions on AA at all - you can hold watever view you like on that or any historical matter. What it's about is the fact that I can tend to get a little upset when people post personal attacks on those who are important to me simply because they are trying publicly to help others out.
As for Gleb Botkin - he didn't even necessarily KNOW the Romanovs that well, so the sincerity of his opinion is pretty irrelevant to the question of who AA was. He could be sincere and still be wrong. This has been pointed out here before (albeit not quite in these words!) - by Penny Wilson.....
Janet